Philosophy profesor Huw Price has cofounded a project with astrophysicist Martin Rees that will seek to push the risks that technology could one day pose to humans "forward in the respectable scientific community."

Philosophers and scientists at Britain's Cambridge University think the question deserves serious study. A proposed Center for the Study of Existential Risk will bring together experts to consider the ways in which super intelligent technology, including artificial intelligence, could "threaten our own existence," the institution said Sunday.

We're anxious to see if Price and his colleagues will be taken seriously (clever technology "tends to be regarded as a flakey concern," he admits). Whether they are or not, we found his reminder that the most menacing foe is not always dangerous on account of outward malice, but dispassion or a lack of interest, particularly chilling.